Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

Boo! We're in the home stretch of Spooky Season, so today we're looking at a ton of different horror movies. Think of this episode as a bunch of overly specific recommendations from overenthusiastic friends. Cam and Maggie have prepared answers to the following prompts:

- Their personal game changers in the horror genre

- Movies that are better the second time you watch them

- The most haunting, stick-with-you and truly bother you messed up horror they've ever seen!

Happy Halloween, and let us know your answers to these prompts too!

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Well I guess we spoke too soon last week – this battle isn't quite over yet! Denethor sweeps into the story to battle the ghost of Gandalf the Grey for the Most Disappointing Father Award and then after he dies Gandalf kinda excuses all of his bad behavior by blaming Sauron. Cam is not convinced. We break down the active theological interference of the God of Middle-earth in this chapter and his difference of values with Denethor, as well as Gandalf's big pivot moment where he has to either make an obviously Gandalf the Grey choice or a "long game" Gandalf the White choice. History is made in this chapter, and then it is edited and actively reframed by its participants. Really thought-provoking stuff that never feels annoyingly meta – who woulda thought?

At some point during the episode, we also stumble into a conversation about Cam's story Poultrified, which is a very silly ghost story about a chicken. You can listen to it here, and hey, thanks for the support: https://www.audible.com/pd/Poultrified-Audiobook/B0731NHSSH?qid=1632967261&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=GK40M3RAWCR5TYZHFXAG

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The year is 1971: we just went to the moon, Nixon is President (woops), Disney World just opened...and Led Zeppelin is singing about Tolkien. Join Cam and Maggie as they break down one of Zeppelin's most Middle-earthian songs. Ringwraiths, the Dark Lord, and magic runes abound - and Arthurian legend is thrown in for some spice. This kaleidoscope of folklore and magic imagery eerily reflects the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and encourages us to once again ponder the ways in which legendary moments pass into legend. Galadriel, Gandalf, and Éowyn make their way into the discussion too, along with a special group of Nine (and it's not the one you think). Plus, Maggie properly identifies a mandolin. Huzzah.

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Oh boy – what a finale. I don't think we've ever been this excited for an episode, even Maggie's recap feels like a spirited campfire reenactment of the chapter. The Witch King rises to previously unknown heights, eclipsing Smaug and Saruman and almost retaking the power of Tolkien's almighty fire imagery – but then Éowyn shows up and ruins his whole day. The power of light and gold (and Aragorn) show up, the heroes wrestle control of both fire imagery and water imagery, and Tolkien recedes into the realm of impressionistic metaphor to describe the terrific violence that ends this battle. Éomer also takes charge of a new "grey company," Tolkien makes his strongest statement yet about history and songs, and we finally see the value of all the geopolitical alliances that our heroes have been building up.

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"Join us!" as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of this stone cold classic. Sam Raimi's 1981 masterpiece The Evil Dead is somehow both the funniest horror movie ever made and also one of the most disturbing. We were lucky enough to see it on the big screen recently and oh boy did it give us a lot to talk about. Bruce Campbell's performance (arguably the greatest lead performance in the genre's history) struck Cam as a fantastically nuanced expression of a man's struggle to live up to the masculine ideal, and the terrible self-consciousness he feels when compared to Scotty, who is Ash's best friend and rival who just so happens to look exactly like Harrison Ford. We also discuss the influence of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on this film, both literally and symbolically, and Maggie leads a conversation about movies that were made under terrible working conditions. We're both endlessly passionate about this movie - it is a scrappy miracle that bleeds excitement and creative hunger in every single scene. Go check it out, and watch it with friends if you can!

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Echoes and mirrors and callbacks – oh my! We've got a new Gandalf the Grey and a new Gandalf the White in this chapter, as the mysteriously well-informed Ghân-buri-Ghân appears and Théoden undergoes a glorious promotion. At the same time, we see Pippin's dread through Merry's eyes as the Rohan arrive with an answer to the fire imagery that has overwhelmed Gondor. We end the discussion with a striking symbolic discovery – two dead men and two dead horses – and we've both got theories about who they represent! Shadows of death and the dead wander through these pages – after all this time, Thorin feels like a constant presence. And Ghân-buri-Ghân is just a fascinating smoothie of ideas, with shades of Gandalf the Grey, Treebeard, and the Shakespearean "old man" prophet that Théoden told us about a few chapters ago.

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TLDR: This comic shows artists who sell their creations to corporations bound and gagged in the seventh circle of Hell as the characters they created (Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, the Hulk, Wonder Woman, the Joker, Wolverine, etc.) are trapped in a prison cell begging for freedom and screaming the word "injustice" into the abyss. Who can save them? Maybe no one, maybe Spawn, or maybe Spawn's creator – Todd McFarlane!

This comic isn't just a love letter to the ideas of artistic integrity and creative freedom, it's a mission statement for Image Comics and the creators-first mentality that rocked the entertainment world in the 90s and hasn't been repeated since in any artistic medium. Cam and Maggie work through the context of the Image Revolution and its long-term effects (hi Robert Kirkman!) before briefly laying out the premise of Spawn and then walking through the glorious, ballsy events of this one-off issue. Doctor Faustus, The Divine Comedy, and A Christmas Carol loom large over this seven-layer burrito of metacommentary and creative meditation. It is bold, it is rude, and dearie me is the passion of this comic infectious.

Read it, celebrate it, scream it from the rooftops until the rest of the entertainment industry gets their ass in line and starts respecting and empowering creators like Image does! Spawn: Issue #10: https://imagecomics.com/comics/releases/spawn-10

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Pippin just might have overtaken Sam as the MVP of Lord of the Rings. He's certainly braver and more badass than Merry or Frodo now – this chapter sees him literally run into fire and revive hope for all of Middle-earth, with zero friends or allies, against overwhelming odds! Flaming torrents, Nazgûl, the sorcerer Ringwraith King of Angmar, trumpets and hunters and "innumerable" orcs – this battle is exhilarating, and Cam calls it the best chapter Tolkien has ever written. Maggie finds the battle much more uneven, and Gandalf's deployment pretty frustrating. But hey, she doesn't write these descriptions, so I can confirm that she is objectively wrong in that assessment! Then we unravel the strange new development where people in power keep mischaracterizing Gandalf the White as his (superior) grey counterpart, and the complex, evolving use of fire imagery to chart the morale of Gondor's defenders.

Also discussed: more evidence that Denethor can read minds, Faramir initiates a good father battle between Gandalf and Denethor, Tolkien's restless pacing and battle vignettes, Gandalf the White's Balrog moment, and the horrifying resolution of Dernhelm / Beregond / "tomb of the unknown soldier" concept that Tolkien has been developing since Two Towers ended.

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Ooh what a strange break from Lord of the Rings! Not really, political intrigue is the back bone of every world-building story, regardless of drama - one of the most frequent Game of Thrones directors also directed 34 episodes of The West Wing. And as we get deeper and deeper into the Rohan / Gondor relationship in LOTR, Tolkien's increasing interest in geopoltical intrigue is threatening to outpace all that pesky Ring drama!

So today Cam is taking a look at all three series of the BBC's House of Cards adaptation, to learn more about trilogies, echoes, reflections, mustache-twirling murders, time jumps, evolving metaphors, decaying humanity, and the power of grand finales in character-focused dramas. Any of that sound familiar, J.R.R.? Oh and there's Shakespeare. Buckets and buckets of Shakespeare, from Macbeth to Henry IV (both parts) and everything in between.

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Merry is our new POV character and Tolkien is marinating us in metaphors! Join Cam and Maggie for a romp through Middle-earth geopolitics and callbacks and echoes but still no Bill the Pony. Our lead hobbit hears a battle song and realizes he's about to live his own little tune when the group reaches Gondor – where everyone might die! Tolkien shocks us both when he abandons nature and description in favor of largely unknown character. Everyone in every storyline agrees that Aragorn is the new Gandalf the Grey. And Cam sees Smaug, the "winged shadow" of our imminent doom, hanging over every moment of the story! Happy Friday.

Instagram: @secondbreakfastpod

Feedback & Theories: [email protected]

Illustrated YouTube clips channel: https://bit.ly/2OT6RP3